"Bad to the Corps" published in A Twist of Noir

Nick Xenagos is an ex-Marine working as a private detective in Boston. His client, Claire, is a breathtakingly beautiful babe with a troubled past that has come back to haunt her. It's Nick's job to perform the exorcism.

Check out "Bad to the Corps" on the ultra-cool A Twist of Noir.

Recent Publications and Possibilities

Here are the recent publications:

• "Nothing You Can Do" in Beat to a Pulp
• "Avenging Angel" in Plots with Guns
• "C. C. Rider" in Pulp Pusher
• "Number One with a Bullet" in Hardboiled

Not so recent, but cool:

• "Redhead and Dead" in Lunacy: The Best of the Cornell Lunatic
• "Detestable Vegetables" in I Invited a Dragon to Dinner

What's out there now:

• "Bad to the Corps" being considered by A Twist of Noir
• "Are You Lonesome Tonight" being considered by Thrilling Detective
• "Twenty-Ten" being considered by Esquire

Novels, done or in the works:

• Cold, Cold Heart
• So Lonesome I Could Die
• Didn't Hear Nobody Die (work in progress)

So that's what I've been up to. More to come.

"Nothing You Can Do" published in Beat to a Pulp

What happens when a corporate badass hooks up with his ultra-sultry assistant to rescue her sister out of an abusive relationship? Read "Nothing You Can Do" in Beat to a Pulp to find out.

The story takes place in Boston, and it provides a powerful lesson is the art of problem solving -- the old-fashioned way.

The moral of the story? There are certain people you should never tell "There's nothing you can do."

"Avenging Angel" published in Plots with Guns

I'm a little late putting this up (it's been about seven months since I posted anything, actually), but better late than never.

Check out "Avenging Angel" is the ultra-hardboiled Plots with Guns.

The story features my old pal, Deke Rivers, and his schizophrenic sidekick, Jeremiah Folsome. There's a man in need of killing, a bad man who does bad things, so Deke takes it upon himself to patch a little loophole in the law with a .50 caliber hunk of lead.

Case closed. :-)

"C.C. Rider" published in Pulp Pusher

My story, "C.C. Rider" is now live on PulpPusher.com.

It's a little ditty about a girl and a guy and a gun. Actually, there are lots of guns. The girl is Clarissa Carrington, who graced many an old story of mine. The guy is Jefferson Thomas, a guy with a big heart and an IQ that pales in comparison.

Check it out. It's not bad, if I say so myself.

Buy Hardboiled #38: Deke Rivers' first public appearance

Yes, I have been writing about country-music-songwriter-turned-private-detective Deke Rivers for several years now, finishing two novels and a dozen short stories. But it wasn't until last week that Deke finally graced the pages on an honest-to-goodness, available-for-purchase pulp fiction quarterly.

To get your very own collectible edition of Hardboiled #38, send $12 ($10 plus $2 postage) to:

HARDBOILED #38
GRYPHON BOOKS
PO BOX 209
BROOKLYN, NY 11228-0209

I will gladly autograph all copies!

Hurry up and wait: Why it takes writers like me years to sell a book

First, I don't pretend to know what it is like for other writers. Perhaps I should; I have many friends who are writers. One of my best friends from Cornell, James C. McKinley, is a bureau chief for the New York Times and is read by millions and millions of people every day. Kinky Friedman has had dozens of New York Times best-sellers, dozens of cult-favorite country songs, and many a perilously non-PC political tract and diatribe. Plus I have many, many songwriting, poetry-writing, short story-writing and novel-writing friends -- ranging from the fabulously successful to the frustratedly struggling.

But I don't pretend to know what it is like for them. All I know is what it is like for me. And for me, it is like this:

I write intensely for periods of months at a time. Then I do what I can to sell what I've written. I am not nearly as intense when it comes to this. But I do it for a while. Then life says, "Okay, you've played writer long enough. Now it's time to beat the wolves back from the door, to handle the wild and relentless onslaught of other human activities for which you have no natural gift, but with which you continue to battle valiantly year in and year out. It's time to forget about this writing thing."

And so I do. Days become weeks, and weeks become months, and all of a sudden it hits me as I am rolling the 50-gallon plastic trash cans out to the curb that I haven't done anything writing-related in a long, long time.

So here's where things stand at present in my efforts to sell the latest novel, SO LONESOME I COULD DIE:

• Creme de la Crime has been looking at the book since February
• Justin Charles & Co. have had 3 chapters since May
• Monsoon has had 3 chapters since May
• Plus a bunch of fools has rejected it

As for short stories, I've sent some things out recently. Here's the scorecard:

• Gary Lovisi at Gryphon Books accepted a story for Hardboiled Magazine
• Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine is looking at "Are Your Lonesome Tonight?"
• ThugLit is looking at "Nothing You Can Do"
• The Back Alley has "C. C. Rider"
• And another bunch of fools has rejected stuff

And that's it. Seven irons in the dying fire.

But like I said, life is happening all around me. Job stuff. Kid stuff. Money stuff. Health stuff.

But I am about to charge headlong into another spurt of frenetic activity. So if any of you know of an editor or publisher looking to break the next great hardboiled detective writer, please post a comment. I promise I'll follow up.

Till then, feel free to visit my sponsors (in the Google ads) or to buy something from one of my Amazon recommendations. The revenue keeps me in postage.